Old Scars and Memories
by Outreach117
Summary: The Sequel to "A New Beginning". Humanity has been erased from the face of Pandora, but the pain of their visitation remains as fresh as ever. They will be returning, but will it be different this time?
1. Family Matters

_A/N: Ok here goes round two, it was promised and I will deliver. Starting off slow but don't worry, we'll be picking up the pace soon enough._

_One Year After The Night Of Lightning Event......_

Norm came into his alcove in the new Hometree feeling especially burnt out after a long hunt atop his Ikran with Ninat. The pair had started the day early, having left Hometree on their Ikran mounts as the morning light was just barely starting to break on the horizon. Not that it was necessary since there was still plenty of lighting from the other moons and Pandora's naturally glowing forests.

Norm's new Ikran that he had bonded with the day after he had mated with Ninat was not as big as his previous mount, but that actually was not necessarily a bad thing. While Maiestas had been certainly one of the biggest Ikrans in the nest and could take down larger game easily, his new mount was a bit faster and indeed more far agile which had advantages too when pursuing more elusive game. Norm had given him the name of Volitalis, again Latin for swift. Ninat's mount was also a glorious sample of an Ikran, flourished with blue and purple which contrasted sharply to Volitalis's almost tan and leathery brown appearance.

The hunt had gone well with a variety of game caught, but mainly Yerik had been the catch of the day. The pair had brought in four of the deer-like creatures which had enough meat to feed their Ikrans, themselves and several other Omaticaya for a couple of days. In an attempt to preserve resources and game close to Hometree the two had taken a long flight about forty miles west of Hometree so as not to encroach too severely on the local habitat. The flight out had been simple, but the return flight carrying the extra payload of two Yerik apiece and been slow with their Ikran constantly needing to rest from the burden of the extra weight.

Now Norm had practically collapsed on the oversized woven hammock feeling the strain of the hunt starting to sink in. Ninat could tell that Norm was hurting, him having been the one who did most of the hauling and carrying for the Yerik from the top of Hometree to the base. They had been planning on singing a duet hymn to thank Ewya from the top of Hometree as was their typical habit, but it seemed like he was too tired and in a bit too much ache to be up for anything except rest at the moment.

Ninat came over to him and sat on the edge of the hammock, rubbing a soothing balm over her hands. Norm almost flinched at her sudden touch as she kneaded his shoulders and neck, feeling the muscle over bone that weren't quite Na'vi. Humans were stockier than the average Na'vi which were very thin and wiry by comparison.

Norm let out a deeply appreciate sigh as Ninat worked an especially tense spot. Ninat had one other talent in that she was gifted with the hands of a healer. Norm felt like he was the luckiest and most fortunate man in the world, indeed the galaxy to be life-mated to the tall blue-skinned Siren-voiced woman. Sometimes he wondered what he had to offer that allured her so much by comparison.

"Feel better?" She leaned down to whisper in his ear that flicked under her warm breath, a response that elicited a giggle from Ninat.

"Always, my love. But that doesn't mean you can stop yet," came Norm's almost muffled reply from laying face down. She made a sarcastic huff but still smiled widely as her hands continued over Norm's shoulders, and he sighed again in deep gratitude.

Ninat chewed her lip for a moment, then finally decided to ask Norm what she had been wondering about. Norm had been able to tell something was up with Ninat. She had seemed to be her usual self from outward appearances, but across the bond they shared he could tell that something was starting to bubble to the surface that she wanted to ask him.

"You know, I was just thinking."

_Uh-oh, she's buttering me up for something, too bad it's working_ Norm thought as she found another tense spot on his neck_._ "About what, love?" He managed to grunt out without moving his head so as to discourage her handiwork.

Ninat let out a small sigh, "my mate, I think it is time that we think about adding to the family."

Aches and exhaustion completely forgotten, Norm immediately sat up in the hammock and looked into his mate's yellow eyes, feeling lost in them. _Be a father? Am I ready for that, can I be that?_

Doubt seemed to plague his mind, but he looked up at his mate and he saw a woman that loved him deeply and would go anywhere with him and do anything for him, and he would do the same for her.

Norm chewed his lip for a moment as Ninat patiently looked back at him, understanding written across her face. She then saw his face take on the edge that she recognized all too well that he got whenever he made his mind about something. Finally he gave her an answer. "My Ninat, if you want to start making the family bigger, then let's go for it." His aches and pains seemed to completely disappear as her mouth descended onto his. They never did make it to singing that night.

_At the edges of the Sol System............................._

The _ISV Venture Star_ gracefully tumbled 180 degrees in place so that the massive engine faced towards earth and a massive line of flame kilometers long spewed out, beginning the process of slowing the massive vessel from near relativistic speeds. The braking cycle for the _Venture Star_ had begun. It would orbit the outer edges of the solar system for another year using the gravity from the sun to keep them in position before they were sufficiently slowed to begin the trek towards the inner planets. Soon, the sleeping passengers would awaken and the whirlwind would be reaped. The only question was, by whom?


	2. Triumph March To Hell

_ISV Venture Star, Earth Orbit, Five Years After Departing the Alpha Centauri System_

Parker Selfridge opened his eyes slowly, sensation and consciousness slowly creeping back to his mind. The haze covering his vision seemed to clear somewhat as he focused on the edge of his cryo chamber, bathed in the sterile blue light. Then the Mother of All Headaches slammed into his mind as the nerves in his brain kicked on and he realized how badly dehydrated his body was.

With a sudden hiss his chamber popped open and the gurney that he was attached to slid out. Straining his neck to either side he could see various other pods opening as the other passengers, survivors and exiles from Hell's Gate began to move for the first time in several years. A lone medical technician came over and checked his vitals but nothing was spoken, actually it was the lack of conversation that had Parker most disturbed.

The crew and passengers shuffled around as if they were zombies, their eyes glazed over, their faces blank, and Parker knew why. A great many of their friends had been killed on Pandora, they had been essentially deported to a dying planet ravaged with pollution and war, and they had to bear the unfortunate blame, whether justified or not, that unobtanium would no longer be coming from Pandora, at least for a while.

Unstrapping himself from the cryo gurney, Parker floated over to a locker bearing his name, his line of thinking unchanging. By now earth probably knew of the disaster, they had to. The _Venture Star_ only traveled at .8 _c_ while communications via laser were at the speed of light. Count in time taken needed to accelerate and decelerate and any communications sent from Pandora, even as much as two years after the _Venture Star's _departure it would arrive before they had returned.

He remembered the communications that he sent just before he entered cryo stasis. It was a short message that explained pretty much everything. _Hell's Gate is completely overrun by natives and human sympathizers. There will be no more unobtanium, it is a complete loss. Details to follow the downlink........_

He hadn't gone into any lengthy explanations, he just sent all the pertinent information in regards to Quaritch essentially declaring martial law at Hell's Gate, and the results from his mixed up attack with hundreds of casualties, massive material and property loss. His only hope was that tempers from the RDA had cooled somewhat in the past few years. Perhaps he could still salvage the situation to save his own ass, play the spin game. Quaritch had essentially held a gun to his head in forcing his cooperation for genocide, and on the other side he had mutineers in the form of that bitch Augustine and her Avatar drivers turned cultists.

To that extent he made sure to include every gram of detail the company had on official records in regards to Grace's and Jake's mutiny and had omitted the entire Avatar team's video logs from their stay with the Na'vi, not wanting to paint either the mutineers or the Na'vi in a greater sympathetic light than they already were.

Parker made his way to the command deck of the _Venture Star_ which sat at the bow of the lengthy starship. The bridge was bustling with activity with the command crew and support staff having been woken from cryo a few months prior when the _Venture Star_ entered the inner solar system. The captain nodded curtly at the former Pandoran Colony administrator as he entered the bridge and worked his way over to a communications hub.

Pulling up his personal file he found dozens of messages waiting for him. Most were from family and friends demanding to know what had really happened on Pandora since apparently Earth news briefs hadn't gone into much detail. _There's some good news at least, nobody had made me out to be a murderer._ Continuing to scroll through the messages feeling more confident about his story actually sticking and the possibilities of him being able to keep his skin and etch out something resembling life back home he found the message he was looking for...and found himself coughing as something got stuck in his throat as he read the message in its entirety. It was from the RDA Board and Staff, along with an attachment from Internal Affairs.

_TO: Selfridge, Parker Administrator for Extrasolar Colony 01_

_FROM: RDA Board and Governmental Oversight Committee_

_DATE: 23 January 2160_

_RE: Pandoran Incident Inquiry_

_Administrator Selfridge,_

_ Firstly, we welcome you and your crew home and back to safety after your harrowing time on Pandora. We are relieved that you and the brave men and women of Extrasolar Colony 01 have survived the _Pandoran Incident_ and we look forward very much to a more detailed debrief of the events leading up to, during and after the _Pandoran Incident._ For simplicity's purpose the collective failure and fall of Extrasolar Colony 01 will be referred to as the _Pandoran Incident.

_ What we the Board which to understand, and we are confident that you and your team can explain, were the curious omissions of various bits of data from your original transmission at the time of the _Venture Star's_ departure. Fortunately for ourselves, Doctor Maxwell Patel RDA Researcher and Avatar Overseer, has provided a much more in-depth report of the events that transpired on Pandora. _

_ Curiously the timestamp and origin of his transmission occurred almost a year and a half after the departure of the _Venture Star,_ but also came from Extrasolar Colony 01 directly. In closer examination of Dr. Patel's report, not only did he furnish far more detail and clear up multiple discrepancies, but it directly contradicted your official......._

Parker stopped there and closed the message, not wanting to read any more of what had happened, gasping for breath. _Dammit to hell! _Parker thought as he cursed his life and that of Patel. He knew deep down what would happen and what the results would be from the Board's investigation. They would need a scapegoat, although in his case, he couldn't really be considered a scapegoat. It was his own thick-headedness that made him ignore Grace and her warnings, and his lack of authority and control that allowed that maniac Quaritch to run rampant.

_Hell's Gate Command Center, Four Years Prior_

Klaxons blared and the rumbling from the failed reactor shook and rattled the entire base. Sparks flew from computers as glass cracked and shattered from the holographic displays. Max knew that he only had seconds before it would be all over, and he intended to go out on a bang.

Parker had done an exceptionally good job of trying to cover his ass in using various logic bombs and viruses to eradicate many of the records on the computers at Hell's Gate. It was a simple insurance policy he implemented right before the base was overtaken by Jake, the Na'vi and the various Avatar staff. Parker expected that if he was going to be sent packing that he would try and make up a more favorable story of the outcome of Hell's Gate, and that by the time anyone else arrived, if anyone else came, the computers would not be able to produce any condemning evidence to the contrary.

Only thing was, Max had left him a little ticking time bomb addressed directly to the RDA board, copies of security logs, eavesdrops, the entire video and record logs for the Avatar team, Grace's personal notes on the Na'vi and complete raw gun camera footage of the destruction of Hometree. These, Max had kept on a small holographic storage drive the size of a fingernail on a chain locket around his neck. Now, with the end in sight and Parker trying to make his own history, he wasn't about to let that happen.

Max quickly yanked the locket from his neck as he furiously punched in computer commands to align the laser communications dish with the uplink in Earth orbit for the first time in the past year and a half. Signal strength read green and solid with the continually beaming laser-based communications from earth. Max plugged the data chip into the console in front of him, another rumble driving him to his knees.

Struggling back to his feet he typed in a simple command, and clicked _SEND._ In microseconds the entire contents of the data chip were beamed to Earth. Based on the rough math in his head, the RDA staffers listening for any communications from Pandora would receive the data burst about a year before the _Venture Star _would arrive. Parker would not get his triumph return, rather he would most likely see the inside of a jail cell for the rest of his life. The thought was enough to bring a smile to Max's face as his entire world went white.

_ISV Venture Star, Present_

Parker roamed down the long stretch of tubes going the length of the ship. He knew what waited him down below, and he was not about to allow some pencil-pushing flunkie who was trying to cover their own ass hang his out to dry for the sake of trying to get some better press. _Make this all the fault of one individual who's goals and interests were not in alignment with our Company,_ _the usual blame game that always works_, Parker thought.

Arriving at his destination, a small airtight room with pressure doors on both sides. Shutting himself inside the small compartment he found some sick twisted humor at his situation, confident that God, Jake and indeed the universe was having a collective laugh at his expense. _The bad guy gets it in the end_ _a perfect fucking fairy-tale_ thought Parker.

He was still laughing as he pressed the release button for the cramped airlock and was blown out into cold space, the smile and laughing mockery on his face being frozen for eternity that was the whimpering death of RDA Extrasolar Colony 01 Administrator Parker Selfridge.


	3. Virus Domus

_A/N: Here comes another update, don't anyone be thinking this fiction is dead._

_Pandora, Five Years After The Night of Lightning Event_

Norm Spellman always felt like he was a lucky man, and every day just seemed to get better and better. If you had told him a decade ago that he would be on a starship headed to Pandora as an Avatar driver, he would have said you were crazy. If six years ago someone had said that he would help form an insurrection that would push the human presence off Pandora, he would have asked you to pass the joint you were smoking. The same being said for if someone had told him five years ago that he would have been the last human on Pandora to be transferred to his Avatar body, mate with a Na'vi for life and get a new Ikran mount in the space of barely 24 hours, he would have probably had you committed to a locked room with padded walls.

Now, he had a loving mate and two wonderful children, his older son Maxwell now four years old, and his three year old younger son Ka'Ten, named after Ninat's late father who was killed in the destruction of Hometree. They weren't alone in the population boom of New Hometree either. Jake and Neytiri had had a couple children of their own in the past few years, their three year old son Tsu'Tey and their two year old daughter, Sylwanin named after Neytiri's deceased sister, killed by RDA mercenaries in Doctor Augustine's school in retaliation for an attack against RDA assets. It had been the incident that had resulted in the Doctor's expulsion from the Omaticaya and the closure of the school.

The bustling of new children were complimented by Grace, the caesarean-birthed pure-blooded Na'vi daugther of Nik'ta and Mithra who was now five, and Pey'lal's two year old daughter Yinfai who was raised by the Huntress alone. Her mate had been killed before Yinfai was born, having found himself on the wrong side of a Palulukan on a hunt mere weeks before birth. The effect on the morale of Hometree had been devastating, and many held the belief that the only reason that Pey'lal didn't join him in Ewya by jumping off the highest branch of Hometree was because of Yinfai. It was a hard fact, but life on Pandora was not all sunshine and flowers and the law of the wild still ruled supreme.

Both of Norm's children had inherited their father's curiosity and the elegant grace of their mother. For the hybrid children, the Na'vi genes between the pairing of the natives and Avatars had proven dominant with the children retaining most of the physical features of the Na'vi. They had three fingers with an opposable thumb, and their eyes were larger and yellower, more closely matching the Na'vi. They still retained eyebrows strangely enough, and were of a bit stocker build than the thin and wiry natives. The differences were becoming more blurred and Norm had no doubt that after another generation, any residual human DNA would work itself out.

There had been a great bit of concern before having children that Avatars and Na'vi would be physically incompatible. Fortunately this turned out to be untrue, much to the relief of their parents. The children were tightly bonded from the get go, more due to the fact that their parents had all been extraordinarily close. Some of them had already been promised or at the minimum intended for each other. Unlike most Western culture back on Earth, the Na'vi did hold to arranged marriages, although it was more like an extremely strong suggestion that being forced without question, and indeed Ewya had to give the final blessing for a mated pair to be complete.

Things still were not perfect throughout Hometree. Some of the scars remained, and both Jake and Norm's children had been the brunt of some ridicule by other children of the Clan having been called such insults as "half-blood" among others. Jake had no idea where other children of their age had heard such insults from, but he suspected that more than a few of the Omaticaya were still bitter about the Sky-People intervention and invasion of Pandora. Since their parents were hailed as heroes, directly challenging or insulting them would border on heresy, so they worked through their children to harm the thing that Jake and Norm valued most, their children.

This had brought the two pairs of hybrids extremely close since they stuck together to ward off bullies. Yinfai and Grace were close to them as well, but since their parents had been fully Na'vi they didn't receive the same amount of ridicule, although some harassed them as well by virtue of proxy. Neytiri and Pey'lal had gotten involved on a couple occasions in dealing with the bullies since all Na'vi took part in the raising of the younger children. Suffice to say no "playground bully" as Jake called them, or indeed their parents were ready to go head to head with what most likely was the most deadly pair of female Huntresses on Pandora which usually bought the children some respite for a month or more at least. Still their parents harbored no illusions that once their children were older that they would have to fight their own battles, and they intended for them to be ready. The fear that gripped the minds and hearts of all the Na'vi on either side of the low-fence that divided the Clan, was who would the be protecting from, Pandora, the Sky-People or both?

_Earth, Same Time_

Rolling blackouts and brownouts had become the standard throughout the planet. The failure of Extrasolar Colony 01 had been the final nail in the coffin for the dying planet. Starvation and war was rampant over the last few resources on earth as the population continued to implode dropping at an average of three percent a year, sometimes higher. Some areas of the globe had been hit harder than others with both South and North America having long withdrawn from global politics, leaving the rest of the planet to their fate.

That is not to say they got it light either, with rampant crime and inflation, the division between the classes was so distinct the only difference between the United States government and the feudal system of the Middle Ages was that the President was elected instead of having a Monarchy for life. Executive orders and sheer brute force of the military and law enforcement had kept the local population in line with old racial tensions making the entire North American continent ready to burst at the seams. Most people in the world would have given all that they owned to even just have a tin shack in the slums of the once thriving metropolis's.

The European Union had collapsed from bitter infighting and the entire continent had been ablaze with one regional conflict after another, old hatreds that had festered for decades boiling to the top. All that remained of Europe were bombed and burnt out buildings, reminiscent of pictures after the Second World War. The United Kingdom fared about as well as America did thanks mainly to their geographical isolation from the mainland, the same could be said for Japan and Australia along with various smaller nations throughout the Pacific and Caribbean.

China, India, Pakistan and indeed most of Asia found changing climates and toxicity along with their demands for massive amounts of natural resources for a population that was almost 50% of the world overall simply unable to sustain. Their governments simply ceased to exist, becoming overrun with territorial militias and revolts. New regimes whose lengths were measured in months had become the standard. Most in the global intelligence industry didn't even bother to try and keep track of the constantly changing authorities of powers with assassination and overthrows rampant, it was simply too much to track.

There had been two exception for Asia, Russia and North Korea. North Korea locked itself away completely behind its peninsula having constructed massive concrete and barbed wire walls that encircled the entire country. Trade was minimalist, anyone attempting to flee the country was shot without question. The scant few that did escape told harrowing stories that fell on deaf ears and apathy from the rest of the world filled with problems of their own. Africa overall was largely ignored with the only interests being defended were the diamond industry, and even that was a risky business with mercenaries and infighting rampant. The world as whole just left the continent to its own devices for the most part.

Russia had long since reverted back to the Soviet-era days of the Politburo, although with far less expansionist attitudes of the two-century old Warsaw Pact and focused entirely inwards. They were mimicking the attitudes of the United States, the UK, and Japan, using their massive military and raw resources of the Urals and Siberia to keep their country sustained much as how the United States had allied with Canada for resource exploration. It was the only thing keeping them from following the rest of the world into complete mayhem and little wonder that those four powers were the main financial backers of the RDA along with Australia and a few other small countries that gave what they could.

Now with the RDA gone, having filed for bankruptcy after the failure of Extra Solar Colony 01, the last joint international effort since the International Air and Space Administration came to a crumbling failure. Investors and related industries went tits up practically overnight, massive governmental hearings were held to discuss the incidents on Pandora. The few humans that returned home on the _Venture Star_ were shunned at the minimum, some were beaten and killed in mob justice. Police were uninspired to stop since the world overall viewed them as the reason that everything was crumbling apart, whether deserved or not. Since Parker Selfridge had taken a walk in Earth orbit without a spacesuit and nobody else had been a higher level administrator, they grunts and miners whose only crime had been trying to make a living for their starving families and following harsh orders on a harsher planet bore the blame.

With no more crews or funding, the ten RDA starships sat in Earth orbit, not moving, without a crew and effectively mothballed indefinitely. No one was sure if the great ships would fly again, although everyone knew that they would need to, just not if they actually would. Earth was at the point in time what future historians would call the eve of a second Dark Age. They needed a miracle, some light to show their way, a thread to grasp, anything, some sliver of hope. Few really believed that the hope might be found on a small moon trillions of miles away orbiting a gas giant at a nearby star. It would be up to a dedicated few to show them the way.


End file.
